This invention relates generally to an electrical connector and, more particularly, to an improved arrangement for terminating conductors to contacts in an electrical connector.
Crimping techniques are commonly utilized for securing contacts to insulated wires. In accordance with such techniques, the wire end must be stripped of its insulation covering and the contact barrel is then crimped onto the bare wire. Subsequently, the contact is inserted into a contact receiving cavity in a housing of an electrical connector. The contacts are usually individually removable from the contact receiving cavities so that a damaged contact can be replaced. The crimping of individual contacts is obviously time consuming. Moreover, crimping generally cannot be performed on contacts which are already mounted in a connector housing since it is impractical to design crimping tools which are capable of crimping the end of the contact to a wire due to the common use of a large number of contacts with closely spaced centers. Thus, what is desired is a termination system which requires no crimping of contacts.
Termination techniques are known in the art in which conductors are connected to contacts without crimping. Such devices are normally referred to as "solderless" connectors. The following United States patents disclose various forms of solderless connectors: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,012,219; 3,234,498; 3,617,983; 3,683,319; 3,718,888; 3,758,935; 3,760,335; and 3,761,886. Each of these patents discloses a plate-like section having slots adapted to receive an insulated wire which is pushed into the slot at right angles with respect to the plate. While such an arrangement may be convenient for certain electrical interconnection systems, it has not been practically applied to electrical connectors utilized in the telephone industry, for example, except in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,760,335 to Roberts. In the Roberts patent, the plate-like sections which receive the wires are disposed at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the contacts so that when the wires are inserted into the slots in the plate-like sections, the wires will extend rearwardly from the connector generally parallel to the contacts. In this manner, the large number of wires connected to the contacts in the connector may be gathered together and passes through a strain relief clamp on a junction shell of the connector in the conventional manner. The insertion of the wires into the plate-like termination sections of the contacts in the Roberts patent is performed by a special fixture disclosed therein. The connector is first fixedly mounted in the fixture. A plurality of wires is then inserted into slots on a pair of pivoted arms which are shifted into position adjacent to the plate-like sections of the contacts to appropriately locate the wires for insertion into the slots in the plate-like sections. Thereafter, a pair of handles are pivoted to transfer the wires from the pivot arms into the slots in the contact termination sections. While the contact termination arrangement disclosed in the Roberts patent is satisfactory, it requires a special fixture to perform the termination procedure. In addition, the use of plate-like termination sections on the contacts limits the extent to which the contacts may be mounted in closely adjacent relationship in the connector housing. Further, the termination arrangement is essentially limited to use with round wires and is not capable for use with flat cables, for example.
Another solderless connection relevant to this invention is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,403,703.
It is the purpose of the present invention to overcome the attendant disadvantages of the prior art connector termination arrangements by providing a termination device which requires little space, thereby allowing contacts in a connector to have closely spaced centers, and which is adapted to a variety of forms of conductors, including both round wires and flat cables. Another purpose of the invention is to provide a connector in which a part of the connector housing is utilized as a tool for simultaneously inserting a plurality of wires into the termination sections of the contacts in the connector, thus eliminating the necessity of a special fixture for performing the termination procedure.